In an interview on GR Press Live/Newstalk 1340 WJRW in Grand Rapids, Rob Fowler, president of the Small Business Association of Michigan, says Gov. Rick Snyder's budget tells people the state is open for business again.

Snyder proposes to replace the much-maligned Michigan Business Tax with a 6-percent corporate income tax that would only apply to "C" corporations, which are large private or publicly owned companies.

Topics discussed:

-- With a $1.8 billion tax shift from businesses to individuals, critics of the governor's budget say it favors businesses and does not share the sacrifice.

Are most small-business owners wealthy? "People want to say corporations because it makes you think of nameless, faceless big business, but the truth is the people who benefit from this most are small businesses -- the mechanic at the corner shop, the person we all know who took out a second mortgage and lays awake at night trying to figure out to make payroll on Friday. That's the person we're talking about. The last one paid in their own company."

-- What about surveys and arguments that tax structure is not the biggest impediment to moving a business from one place to another? Are taxes every business owners' top priority?

"I can't say it's the biggest priority. But the biggest lever the government has particularly in terms of short-term stimulus effect is the tax and regulatory system."

-- Getting rid of Michigan's byzantine tax-credit system. "Every time you give a tax credit, you put some upward pressure on the tax rate for everybody else." Fowler asks if it's fair that an LLC or S-corporation has to pay taxes on its business investment through the Michigan Business Tax then also pay personal income taxes, too.